by Amanda Davis
He said this in a high squeaky voice with a hand on either hip, his lips squeezed like he tasted something sour. He shook a finger at me. “Because they were nice people and I know for a FACT they wouldn’t leave me such a shit-ass tip.”
He fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered me one, then leaned back against the Dumpster. “Now you listen to me, girl. Everyone’ll leave a shit-ass tip now and again. Some more than others, but everyone’s capable, and”—he hit his chest—“Charlie Yates doesn’t swipe tips.” He grinned, then struck a match and inhaled. He leaned his head back and blew smoke at the sky while handing me the matches on his open palm.
But I didn’t take them, or even hear what he said next, because I was too busy hearing what he’d just said: Yates. Charlie Yates was Starling’s twenty-year-old brother, I was almost positive. He was from Yander and he’d visited her in the hospital once, though I’d only seen him from a distance. She’d told me so much about him. I didn’t know what to say.
“—fucking dishes, too. I mean it isn’t like they don’t break a glass here or there through the course of the night, right, but who do they look to when the count is low? Bus. That’s your answer—”
The door opened and a pissed-looking blonde stuck her head outside. It seemed like it pained her to speak to us.
“Hel-lo, Chuck,” she said. “I need water on four, twelve, and sixteen, and Marcy has two tables that need to be cleared.”
She turned and went back inside.
Charlie sighed, dropped his cigarette, and ground it into the pavement. He mumbled something under his breath and shook his head. I still couldn’t think of what to say, only that this was Charlie who Starling had whispered about; Charlie who had a boyfriend in the circus; Charlie who she’d thought could save her. This was Charlie who’d done all those things she’d told me and here I was set to work with him every night.
I dropped my unlit cigarette and tried to grind it like he had. Then I followed him back inside.
We refilled water and cleared dirty dishes. We brought clean forks and warm bread to people who didn’t even notice us. All the while we were careful to keep our white aprons pristine and our expressions polite. We emptied garbage. We fetched clean napkins. And at the end of the evening we sat down to eat.
For the first time in almost a year I was starving.
We had chicken and corn bread, black-eyed peas and greens. When Emily, the night manager, wasn’t looking, Charlie poured half of his beer into a glass and stuck a straw in it for me. “Your ginger ale,” he said loudly when he set it down in front of me. I thought I saw a waitress roll her eyes but kept myself from double-checking.
Instead, I watched Charlie.
He ate quickly and with great concentration—gusto, even. He used the corn bread to sop up the gravy on his plate and every so often he gave a satisfied grunt. “Mmmhmmm,” he said, and washed it all down with beer.
He ate all of his and half of mine, which was okay with me, as it hadn’t taken much to fill me up. The beer and the sounds of the empty restaurant made me drowsy. It echoed with our movements and those of the wait staff in the booth behind us. Even the kitchen was quiet. The chef and the dishwasher sat at the bar nursing drinks.
“It ain’t a bad place to be,” Charlie said, looking at me with the sleepy eyes of a big meal finished quickly. “I’ve worked here a while and don’t have many complaints, you know. I don’t mind it so much and they’re good about letting me go when I need to.” He closed his eyes and let out a huge resounding belch that prompted groans, snorts, and giggles from the table behind us.
“Chuck, you are so nasty,” someone said.
He grinned and tipped the last of his beer at me. “Hey, you were good tonight. You’ll work out just fine.”
“Thanks,” I said. It was the first he’d really addressed me, instead of just talking or teaching, and I warmed at his words.
“I’m real happy to have a job,” I said.
And something washed over me then, something warm and comfortable. I found myself wanting to tell him things, wanting to explain about leaving and ask his advice. But I kept quiet.
“You’ll do fine,” he said again. “Just fine.” And then he looked at me strangely, almost like he was seeing me for the first time. He shook his head and got up to clear our plates.
Outside Clark’s, the fat girl was perched on a wide concrete planter, smoking a cigarette. “Since when do you smoke?” I said. My head still spun from the night. I was deeply and thoroughly exhausted—even my bones felt heavy. The fat girl sneered, narrowed her eyes, and fell into step beside me.
The evening was nippy and I wished I’d worn a coat, but I was too satisfied with the way things had gone to worry much about it. The voices of the restaurant swam through my head—laughter, orders, music, the clinking of glasses and scraping of forks against plates. I found myself grinning at things I’d overheard, and at Charlie’s praise.
“Hello,” the fat girl said.
“What?” It came out harsher than I’d meant it. I kept walking. There were crickets chirping and from one of the small houses off in the distance I heard the laughter of a television. The fat girl’s hands were free and swung by her side. She marched along, not looking in my direction. Her voice was nasty and sharp.
“So you don’t feel like filling me in on your evening?”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do you think I might want to know?” She gave an angry grunt. “Why are you playing games with me? You know very well what I would want to know.”
She stopped and grabbed me by the arm so that I jerked back.
“Ow.”
I didn’t meet her eyes. Instead I watched the street and looked at the quiet houses streaming up the road, lit only by porch lights. I thought of all the people sleeping peacefully inside them. Dreaming dense, lovely, unworried things. My evening’s elation evaporated slowly, floating away on the chilly breeze.
“Listen,” I said, finally. “There’s not much to tell. You could have come inside if you were so interested.”
“Would you have liked that, Faith?” She jerked my arm again, and I saw that her teeth were clenched. There were tears in her eyes.
“What do you think I do for you, Faith?” She pounded her chest. “I protect you. I keep you as safe as I can. You can’t shut me out.” She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to her. I was stiff and wooden but she hugged me just the same. “You need me,” she crooned, rocking back and forth. “You do. Remember that, okay? You need me.”
The next morning, when I turned into the driveway of school, I saw Tony Giobambera locking up LilyAnn in the parking lot. I didn’t know whether to wait or not, but I slowed my gait enough that I arrived at the walkway almost the same time he did.
“Hey,” I said. It escaped before I had time to obsess over speaking or not speaking, and Tony, who I suppose was accustomed to people speaking to him at school, nodded in my direction, lifted a hand, and then held the door open for me.
I felt everyone looking. I passed by him and it was as though the world had slowed to turn and watch as we walked in, him just a little behind but unarguably next to me, close enough to establish that we were walking together, through school. And then, like thunder, it all crashed back to normal speed, lockers slamming, people calling to each other, books falling and sliding along the linoleum, the click of locks opened and shut. And there, in our path, stood Jenny Sims, books balanced on one perfect hip, head a little to the side so that her white-gold ponytail tickled one shoulder.
“Hey babe,” Tony said, and reached down and kissed her full and long on the mouth.
I couldn’t breathe. She gave me a look, part smile, part ice, linked her arm through his, and pulled him along. I stood still, frozen to my spot on the floor. Tony looked over his shoulder at me and nodded good-bye.
And, just a hair too late, I nodded back and the bell rang.
“What did you expect, Faith?”
In the hall I tried to get my bearings. Here was the school I knew as I knew life itself: the goods and bads, the things I understood and things I never would. And then there was Clark’s, where I’d felt myself evaluated purely on the basis of how I carried trash or replaced a dropped spoon. I was useful, needed, but without context.
I liked it.
I didn’t have to see Fern for another few days and as I walked towards my locker I thought about what I might say, the things she’d want to hear, that would prevent her from trying to climb inside my head: taking responsibility, learning acceptance, trying my best.
Clark’s quickly became routine and familiar. My ability to escape detection was an asset—no one wants to see the busgirl—and somehow I was able to refill water, replace silverware, and wipe tables without anyone really focusing on me. I loved the mindlessness of it—pure energy, physical response without thought. I liked the surge of chatter, the music of crockery, of glass and utensil. I liked following Charlie around and the careful conversations we had out back while sneaking cigarettes.
I waited to tell him about Starling. Not intentionally, but I hadn’t told him when I first figured it out, and now it felt weird to say anything. I didn’t know how to bring it up or how he would react. In the four shifts I’d worked with him, he still hadn’t mentioned her, or even his family. All he talked about so far was circuses and sideshows and his tattoos. He dreamed of becoming a fully illustrated man.
A huge, fierce tiger crouched across his left shoulder. It was red and orange and yellow and black. There was a brown-and-red falcon flying along his forearm. On one of his hands, above the knuckles, small dark letters spelled PRINCE, and on the other, FLAME. A colorful, complicated band of dancing Gypsies circled his right wrist, and on the side of his neck, just under one ear, a finely scaled snake curled in loops. And though I hadn’t seen it, I knew what was inked over his heart: three chickens—one pink, one pale green, one light blue.
But I’d begun to fixate on how to confess all I knew about him, that I’d seen Starling sleeping night after night, that she’d told me how their mother had left when she was a toddler, about their spaced-out father and raising themselves.
Then one night Charlie said, “You’re funny. You listen really hard.” We were out back, leaning against the enormous Dumpster and watching through the large windows as the staff set up for dinner.
“Why is that funny?” I asked. I was very tired. The fat girl had kept me up the night before, bothering me endlessly while I tried to study and then shaking me awake to ask me when we should go, where we should go. North? West? What about New Orleans? All day I’d felt like my head was full of syrup.
“I don’t know,” he said, thoughtfully. “I guess people aren’t usually interested in other people the way you are…but that’s cool.”
Off in the distance a train whistled and then a car alarm began to bleat. We were still for a long time. I took a deep breath.
“How’d you come to be so into the circus?” I asked. I couldn’t look at his face.
“It’s a long story,” he said. “I’ll tell you some other time,” and then we went inside.
“I knew her,” I said later while he hoisted garbage from the dishwasher’s trash can. “Your sister, Starling. I knew her. At Berrybrook.”
Later we sat outside under the stars in the parking lot and I told him how Starling used to laugh and make us all laugh. How, in her manic periods, she could convince us to do anything that occurred to her. Dance, play Truth or Dare. Or, one time, gather all the toilet paper on the ward and use it to bowl down the hall. How when she was gone we barely spoke to each other anymore. How still those halls became without her wild energy, her all-encompassing madness.
While I spoke and he listened, I was calm. It felt right, like he was a part of Starling and she was with us.
Charlie smoked cigarette after cigarette, his jaw clenched, fingers trembling. It was very late, nearly midnight. The restaurant had closed at nine and everyone had left by ten.
“I miss her,” he said. “So damn much.”
I reached out and touched his arm, lightly put my fingers on the falcon. Only for a second. Then my hand felt heavy and awkward. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of blue and turned. The fat girl leaned against the side of the building. She looked angry and mean.
“What do you see?” He sounded curious and turned to look over his shoulder one way, and then the other. “Is it a ghost?” he asked, but I could tell he wasn’t making fun. I shook my head and closed my eyes. I felt the fat girl watching and couldn’t breathe. I bit my bottom lip and dug my fingernails into the soft underside of my wrist as deep as I could, and it hurt. I blinked the tears back.
“I see things sometimes,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“I’m going to leave here,” I blurted, and felt the fat girl’s fury like a laser beam but I didn’t care, not at all, it was so good to get it out. “I’m going to get out of here and go somewhere else.”
“Where?”
I wished that I knew. “Maybe New Orleans,” I said. “Or San Francisco. Or somewhere north, you know. Like New York City.”
“When?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Hmmmm.” He didn’t seem surprised or alarmed. It was really quiet then. Not even a car in the distance, no moon to get the crickets going.
Charlie lit another cigarette, then pointed to his falcon. “I got this one at this place called Mike’s in Nashville. It wasn’t my first.” He touched his heart, where I knew the chickens were. “I got something else first. But I knew I wanted more after that. Tattoos are weird, you know. They’re, like, addictive. You fall in love with them and then you want to cover yourself. It’s like you’re reclaiming your body or something. Marking it up just for yourself.”
He blew a smoke ring and I leaned over and took a cigarette without asking.
“The thing is I always wanted to be in the circus, ever since I was little. Well, Starling must have told you that. But, see, I didn’t have anything I could do. I’m not the clowning type, right. I’m not a juggler or an aerialist or a tumbler or whatever. So it wasn’t until I met Marco—” He jerked his head up suddenly. “Starling probably told you that too, right? About me?”
“He’s your boyfriend?”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah. And he’s in the sideshow. I never thought it could be possible until I met him.”
He shook his head. “But anyway, Nashville, right? I’d left town and was living there for a while. I was trying to find a place…I don’t know. I liked it and all, I mean I sort of connected with some of the folks I met, but…The thing is, the only place I’ve ever felt like I wasn’t all the time getting judged for some bullshit or other was when I’ve been with a show.”
I waited for him to go on but he didn’t. After a minute or so, he said, “Sometime—I mean not tonight, okay—but sometime you should tell me why you’re going.”
I nodded.
He put out the cigarette and stood up.
I stood also and then Starling’s big brother wrapped his long arms around me, and I couldn’t fight it back anymore, I began to sob, all of it tumbling out of me like an avalanche. He held me tight and rocked a little. “It’s okay,” he said.
Oh, the freedom in that. The freedom in letting even some of the bats out of the attic, the rats out of the dungeon. Charlie drove me home and I left his car feeling light and giddy. When I got upstairs, the fat girl was sitting on my bed.
“Move,” I said. It was odd how strong I felt. Without saying a word she rose slowly and walked to the chair. I threw my bag down and pulled my pajamas from under my pillow
.
“Tomorrow’s Fern,” the fat girl said.
“I know.”
“I hope you won’t be sharing anything inappropriate with her.”
I changed out of my clothes completely before answering. I turned but she was staring out the window into the night. I shook my head. “No,” I said quietly.
First period. Art. Tiny, chipper Ms. Winters wasn’t there. Instead we had a substitute, a huge, barrel-chested man in a crisp white shirt and a camouflage tie.
“I am Mr. Goffelnowski,” he said, and wrote it on the board at the same time in huge loopy letters. His handwriting was girly, but he looked like a marine.
He leaned against the blackboard and ran one hand through his silvery crew cut. “I’m your substitute today, and I will not put up with funny business, am I understood?!” He had the voice of a drill sergeant. Everyone exchanged looks. Across the table from me, wheezy Bobby Thomson raised an eyebrow. No one was in the mood to argue at eight-fifteen. We all nodded.
“Take out some paper,” Mr. Goffelnowski commanded. We didn’t move. This was confusing: did he mean notebook paper or the drawing paper that Ms. Winters kept in the cabinet by her desk? “I SAID TAKE OUT SOME PAPER!”
Out came the notebooks. The room filled with the clatter of binders opening and closing, the zip of paper torn from spirals.
Mr. Goffelnowski paced the room now, depositing a small pile of number-two pencils on each table. “Don’t touch these until I tell you to!” he said, pointing at the pencils and warning us with his eyes. “Okay. Now, everyone take a pencil.”
We did.
“And…” he raised one arm above his head and pointed a finger at the ceiling tiles. “GET READY…get set…” He lunged forward and lowered his arm as if we were to clear the starting gate. “DRAW!”
Again confusion kept us from moving. We were used to Ms. Winters, who was in her mid-twenties and liked to play music and tell us to choose a color for the way we felt that day.
